Time for a change (story, and ongoing tracker)

Meh, stories probably get pretty old to everyone on here ha, so this is more for me as a way to get a few things written down and a place to keep track of thoughts/challenges/progress. You are welcome to read, flame, comment, whatever

The About Me
30 y/o male, 260, 5-8...married with a toddler and one on the way.

I just turned 30 less than a month ago, that obviously makes you think about some things.

I did a lot of things right in my 20's, have a great family, good job, strong friends, etc. But I look back and realize that I wasted a lot of opportunities as well, probably the biggest area was my health.

My body type (and all guys in my family) is more stocky/muscular, when I was in good shape I was well proportioned but not ever "thin". Totally fine with that, care much more about fitness/proportions than a specific number.

The Why
There were several key triggers to starting the process.

1. Turning 30
2. Every cell in my body felt "dead". This is weird and hard to describe, but I'd do the slightest physical activity and I would just want to crash on the couch.
3. Realizing that playing with my daughter usually involved me moving from the couch to a stable spot on the floor and trying to convince her to run around.
4. Realizing that I will need 5 times the energy I have now in order to wrassle 2 kiddos.
5. Not being able to simply bend down and easily pick up something.
6. Excessive sweating becoming pretty embarrassing in front of clients.
7. Seeing the inevitable pictures of myself
8. Knowing that I have high-blood pressure, and probably have gotten to the point where I am pre-diabetic. I for sure have unbelievable energy swings, and some periods during the day where I "crash" so hard I almost can't get off the couch.

The HistoryCollege
Pretty standard got larger in college in the late 90's, nothing horrible, but just in general got slightly larger and in slightly worse shape for 4 years. Probably went from like 180 to 210 or so over that period.

Starting Out - Early 20's
Nothing really significant any which way, maybe put on a few more pounds. Got married, I was not very active, but wasn't a vegetable by any means. Never really ate healthy. Was really poor so didn't eat out very much which probably slowed down the weight gain.

The Job - Mid 20's
Got a job that required pretty extensive travel (60%-70%). Put on another 20ish pounds up to about 240 total. The primary culprit was by far eating out and being on an expense account. I did a lot of skipping breakfast and having huge/fattening lunches and dinners because they were free (pretty hard to choose a chicken breast and broccoli over an expensive steak, twice baked potatoes, etc. Other main culprit was pretty much just not exercising. Sadly I had plenty of opportunity in hotels (pretty much all have gyms), but after a very long hard day of work when faced with a choice of ordering a meat lovers pizza delivered to my room or going downstairs to work out, I always made the wrong choice.

Attempt 1 - Around 27
At about 240 I made my first attempt to correct things. I had a prolonged period of several months at home with a flexible schedule and decided to take advantage. I tackled both exercise and diet, although much more focus on exercise. I spent 1.5-2 hours a day in the gym right and worked out hard both weights and cardio. I improved my diet significantly, but still struggled with 2 things, cheating way too often (esp weekends/eating out), and portion control even with the fairly healthy meals my wife would cook.

The weight flew off pretty quickly, lost 40 pounds right down to 200 in about 3 months. Felt unbelievable, actually got to the point where I felt like if I didn't go to the gym I had so much excess energy that I had to go do something! Looked great, body transformed a lot since I did a lot of weight training and I was very happy at the 200. 200 is probably still considered too much for my height, but with my stocky build it felt good. My shoulders to waist proportions looked great.

The slow part of the slide- Around 28
200 should have been a great number to motivate me to stick with it, but I started a slow slide back to my old habits. This was triggered by an increase in work/stress, the holidays, and just slowly reverting to old habits. The diet slipped first, I was working out so much that I could go eat worse and not gain so that's exactly what I started doing. One Taco Bell trip a week became 3. Skipping dessert became a thing of the past, etc. The the exercise started to slip and I stopped looking at the scale as it slowly crept back up to 210, 220, etc.

The fast part of the slide- Around 28-29
Then my wife became pregnant, and I gained almost as fast as she did. At first it was pure portion control when she was had lot of sickness. She'd make dinner and not be able to eat hardly any of it. So if she made a dinner that was say 4 portions, I found myself eating 3.5 of them myself in that one sitting. Then the junk fast food really increased in regularity and content and eating on the road became really bad again. Exercise basically ceased, I could blame it on all the increased activity with the pregnancy/having a newborn in the house, but it was really just laziness.

NOW!!

Let's solve this thing!

The Factors in my favor
1. My wife will be supportive, and she's the cook and can cook good balanced, pretty healthy dinners.

2. My job has a ton of flexibility, the best part is that I can usually go to the gym at the peak of my energy which is in the 10:30AM range. When traveling I always have access to a gym in my hotel.

3. I'm decently educated on weight loss, and understand the simplicity of losing weight through a reasonable calorie deficit and exercise. No shortcuts or anything fancy.

4. I'm still a relatively young guy and think I will be able to lose weight pretty rapidly (2-4 lbs a week) if I change diet and exercise simultaneously, this will be a good motivator.

5. I am injury free and can go to the gym for good solid workouts.

6. I have the means to have a gym membership and buy decent food.

Factors working against me
1. Eating out while on the road - this is my huge nemesis!!!

2. My job has a lot of weeks where one week is a very calm 20-30 hours and the next is a hugely busy stressful 50-70 hours. Those crazy weeks it is so hard to exercise and eat right, and taking a full week off is obviously horrible for weight loss, but makes it easy to not resume when things calm down.

3. My wife is pregnant again, and it is definitely harder to eat right with a pregnant wife in the house

4. Anything else I would list is an excuse, so I'll leave it there and am glad this list is pretty short.

The Goal

Unlike many folks on here, I don't have a lbs # target

My priorities in order for weight loss are to
A) Drastically increase energy levelMeasurable: Eat in a way that I do not have any crashes, where I wake up ready to tackle the day, and have a consistent alertness/energy throughout the day.Measurable: Be able to go to the park with my toddler and run (as in actually move around) with her, pick her up, roll around, etc without getting tired.

B) Drastically increase my fitness levelMeasurable: Run 5k without stopping.Measurable: Be able to play a basketball or volleyball game and feel "workout tired" at the end not "I'm going to die tired" after 5 minutes

C) Get my body in proportion of muscles to gutMeasurable: Be able to see defined upper body muscles and have visible abs. Do not need to get "ripped". Upper body being broader than waist/gut.

D) Fit into normal person clothes Measurable: Fit into 32 inch waist pants comfortably.Measurable: Fit into medium shirts comfortably. If I don't, it should be because my upper body makes the shirt tight, not my gut

For those things I think being in the 190's would be about perfect for me. Maybe I'll get there and want to lose more, but I think the 190's is essentially my "target".

The Action Plan
So how am I going to do it. Here's the changes I've targeted, knowing my personality and what is more vs. less likely to work.

Exercise
1. Do official (i.e. at the gym or a run) every business day, and every available Saturday. Workout will typically be 5-10 minute warm up on treadmill, 10 minutes of stretching, 20-30 minutes weights, then 30-45 minutes cardio. The only struggle here is getting to they gym, once I'm there I'm fine.

2. Don't get too caught up in complex approach to weights. Focus A) On doing different things different days (esp mixing up free weights with machine) and B) Not working out so hard that I feel super sore. This is not ideal for muscle development, but this one is more about motivation to get to the gym every day.

3. Vary the cardio method and intensity every day. Alternate between long steady cardio on some days (vary machines/running) with high/low intensity other days (mixing up sprinting/fast walk)

4. Never go out to eat when traveling without going to the gym (for any length of time). This will not only help with fitness but hopefully drastically help my traveling eating problem.

5. Add several of "mini-workouts" throughout the day primarily when at home. Try to have at least 4-6 times thought the day where I do something to get my heart rate up and get blood flowing. Do some jumping jacks, chase my daughter, go for a family walk, etc.

6. Incorporate physical activity into playing with my 30 lb toddler. Our current favorite is "kiddo-squats". I hold her out parallel in front of me, lift her up high, lower her back to level, then do a squat (and repeat). Leg lifts with her hanging on. Chasing her laps around the house and doing high-knee kicks at the same time. She LOVES this kind of stuff so it's a great double checkmark!

Food

1. Start by putting primary emphasis simply on total # of calories, and don't get too focused on getting too fancy here. Limit calories to 1800-2000 daily, never go below 1500, and try to go 2400-2600 (healthy calories) once a week so my body doesn't get too "stuck".

2. Really really focus on portion control. Get one serving of dinner and put the rest away as leftovers before eating. For now, any foods that would be easy to binge on, spend the extra money and purchase in portion controlled sizes.

3. Use TheDailyPlate to track. Focus doubly on tracking days I don't do well just so it is there in front of me.

4. Don't try to over change the diet at this point. While not true in many areas of life, in dieting, it is better to be 70% of perfect than not do anything at all. For me one area of struggle is sodium. Many of my favorite high protein/low calorie lunch foods (since I don't cook) are things like turkey chili, fat free hot dogs, healthy choice soups. Seems that anything I like that is low fat/calories outside of veggies is high sodium. I'll tackle that one later.

5. Completely eliminate desserts. This is pretty easy for me, I don't ever crave sweets, but horribly binge on them if I start. This is one of the easier steps, I rarely eat desserts currently.

6. Focus on low fat/calories and greatly reduced processed carbs that are by themselves. By that I mean I will for now not do bread by itself, chips by themselves etc. But I'm not going to totally avoid say a healthy choice chicken noodle soup.

7. At home eat 6 times a day with no individual feeding >500 cals. This is pretty easy at home and really really helps me feel better all day. This will unfortunately be next to impossible on the road. Will have to focus on making my 3 meals healthy.

8. When traveling always bring several meal bars that can be eaten if needed. Never order pizza or chinese delivery. Always order a salad starter and not soup to try to fill up some. Entrees should be a meat and sides, not a pasta/burger/etc. Don't stress about the meat, but always choose a veggie over a starch side. This isn't perfect, but is I think doable and a massive improvement.

9. Supplements - be consistent about a multi-vitamin, fish oil, and green tea for some caffeine. Occasional protein shake as one of the meals after working out.

10. Always eat breakfast. I HATE breakfast, even to the point where I won't go get a fantastic cooked to order breakfast when traveling. I can do breakfast shakes, so always have these handy and at least do that.

Cool! Seems totally workable. Only problem will probably be those trips away from home. Just make sure you keep yourself disciplined--that's the important part.

Also, you can look up calorie counts for different restaurants on line. Most of the chains have them. That way if you know you're going to someplace like Chili's or TGIFridays or Red Lobster, you can decide ahead of time what you can order that will help you instead of blow things.

If you haven't already done this, have your fasting blood glucose checked just to see where you're at with that. Also your blood pressure. These two numbers are really important to know.

That's very inspiring, you write well! I wish you success, but you clearly have what you need

__________________ Started 4/14/08 LINK TO PROGRESS PICS 1/1/2009 "It is impossible to live pleasurably without living wisely, well, and justly, and it is impossible to live wisely, well, and justly without living pleasurably" Epicurus

I do a considerable amount of work travel, and my biggest hurdles are the same as yours...motivation to get to the gym while traveling, and handling the eating while traveling on business (I often have meetings where lunch is provided, too, which complicates things...). I also have a lot of experience with 60-70 hour weeks (but I wish I had the 20-30 hour ones to counterbalance...lowest I get is around 50). So hopefully some of this helps with your specific situation.

1. Go to the gym before work when you know you'll be busy or when you're traveling. You probably know ahead of time most times whether you're going to have one of those easy 20-30 hour weeks or one of the 50-70 hour weeks. On the crazy weeks, make sure that your exercise is done before you even start your work day. It's even more important when you travel...I know when I finish a day of meetings and get back to my hotel, I usually have more work to do, and I'm exhausted. Sure, it won't be easy to drag yourself out of bed at 5 to exercise before your big day. But in my experience, it's even harder to drag yourself to the gym after a 14 hour day when you've been away from your family, you're starving, and you just want to get home/back to your room and relax.

So look at the day/week ahead, determine when you're likely to be getting home late (I do this based on deadlines and meetings...if I have something due or a meeting to prep or process, I know it's going to be busy, and I exercise first). And if you plan to work out during the day, and you use a calendaring system at your job that shows your availability, block it out so no one schedules over it. And don't feel bad about it, either...that 1 hour in the gym, for me, increases my productivity more than enough to make up for it.

2. Keep emergency food on you at all times. Especially when you travel. I buy high-protein oatmeal...you can prep that in a hotel room with nothing more than hot water from the coffee pot. Protein bars are great when you're in a meeting and they bring in the cookie tray when your energy crashes at 3pm. And if you'll be staying where you are for more than a day or so, do yourself a favor and find a local grocery store when you get there. Get some fruit that keeps well, like oranges. If you have a fridge in the room, and your meetings don't include over-dinner discussions, you can buy enough at the grocery store to get yourself a perfectly on plan meal (and, at least at my company, grocery receipts are also expensable for meals). The emergency food is also important when an anticipated 8 hour day turns into a 14 hour day.

3. If you do go out to eat in a restaurant, double the veggies, nix the starch, and try to keep your meat portions moderate. Since you'll be working on portion control at home, you should have a fair idea of what constitutes of serving of steak...and it doesn't touch both sides of the plate! And if you're really going to be out a lot, you're going to have to get a bit more comfortable with special requests (though that can be awkward in a business setting, particularly for men...I'm guessing that you could probably order two veggies without someone batting an eyelash, but ordering your steak "dry" is another story). Ordering a very lean meal gives you some wiggle room for the invariable restaurant add-ons (oiling/buttering the steaks, the veggies, everything really, not to mention the bread baskets)...if you order a steak, your calorie budget is going to have less room for extras than if you order a nice piece of grilled fish, you know?

re: Time frames for goals...I have sort of mixed emotions on this, am open to input. My tendency is to not set specific timeframes since I don't really know how my body will respond, so don't know what good time frames would be. It seems like I would almost be leading more towards disappointment if I didn't meet the time frame even if I was doign the right steps. OTOH I suppose not having timeframs removes a certain sense of accountability.

Mandalinn, great tips about being on the road. I can empathize with the long days. It's miserable to work until 7, then know you have 2 more hours of work so the only break is dinner. That made dinner the highlight of those days and I took full advantage!

I think carrying emergency food as you call it with me when I travel is a really great idea. I also think anytime I travel >=2 days I should hit up a grocery store the first night, that would be really helpful. I think ultimately eating some filling healthy snack late afternoon (3-4ish) would be really really helpful.

I actually agree with you about the time frame issue. It's common practice to set a time frame on goals, but I think with weight loss/getting fitter in general, there is so much variability in the way every individual body reacts to changes in eating patterns and exercise routines, that saying "I'm going to weigh 200lb by a specific date" may, as you said, be setting yourself up for failure.

That said, I love your plan! Will be interested to track your progress. Good luck.

__________________

Wagon? What do you mean wagon? This is life, not a wagon. You can't fall off life. Get out there and LIVE!

Well I just wrote the OP earlier today, but I actually started this a week ago, so figured I might was well post results/observations from the first week while I can remember it.

Weight - 251
-9 last week
-9 overall

Great first week results wise, and I think I got there with a great combination of eating right and working out (not overdoing either). It doesn't really surprise me to see a 9 week 1. I think I will hit 20 pretty quick (before end of year if I can survive Christmas), then it will slow down a lot to 2-3 per week average if I'm lucky.

I'm amazed by how much better I feel after only a week. I easily have double the energy I had just a week ago. I've been able to play with my daughter a lot more without dragging, and really incorporate a lot of motion into playing, mini-exercising. It's crazy how "awake" my body feels after a day of eating right and working out, physically tired in a good way, but "awake" at the same time.

Food Observations
I did very well this week, probably the best I can reasonably expect to do. What went right was eating 5-6 small meals a day and keeping it in the 1600-2000 calorie range.

Only real slip up was a potluck holiday party last weekend, on the bad side I ate a number of things that weren't great for me, on the positive side, I ate half of what I probably ate last year.

Got lucky when had dinner with friends at their house and they happened to be serving grilled chicken with a cilantro/lime sauce on the side, brown/white rice (I did brown!), and black beans. Skipped dessert and escaped pretty good.

While I did good at dinners they were still my hardest meal. My wife doesn't cook overtly healthy or unhealthy. Her meals are fine for me calorie wise if I just eat the right portions. For example one night she made a lemon pepper turkey breast roast with some steamed rice and veggies. Fine dinner for me, but so tempting to eat about 3x what I should have.

I succeeded this week but it was the most temptation I had all week to go back to the pot and get more a couple. Oddly I'm eating a snack in the 3-4 range which I've never done in the past, but I guess due to the exercise I'm back to feeling like I need to eat a lot at dinner.

I think I need to focus on eating dinner more slowly and maybe increasing the size of my afternoon snack.

No horrible cravings, which I think is a lot due to eating often enough to not be truly hungry very often even though I ate probably half the calories I normally do. Some cravings for chips, and it was hard to not eat a lot of chips/crackers with soups/chili like I normally do.

Exercise Observations
Boy it was hard to have to admit how out of shape I am. Can't really run a quarter mile without getting out of breath, and can only do about half the weight I used to be able to do. The worst was basketball. One day I went out onto the court just to vary things and just kind of ran, sprinted, shot, jumped, etc. I felt (no....actually was) horribly uncoordinated. It was tough.

On the positive side I did really good with my workouts. Made it to the gym every day except Sunday, and even better, did a much improved job of moving a TON more at home. I did a good job of varying my workouts to different types, pieces of equipment, etc. It's really helpful to go in the late morning for me. I need to try to schedule that as much as possible.

I have to be careful to not overdo it, it's better for me to work with a little less intensity and not feel so sore the next day that I don't feel like going. My knees hurt a little, need to be careful not to overexert there.

I am also really really inflexible, and need to put more emphasis on this. I feel like I am "wasting" time at the gym on this but my head knows that's not true.

Next Week
Next week is the first big test as I'm traveling for 2.5 days. On the positive side I am traveling by myself and should not have to work a lot of evening hours so the only real barrier is just temptation to fall into old habits. I shouldn't have the pressure of business dinners and 14 hour days.

Excited about yesterday...had several of really significant victories.

First I went to a playground with my daughter and whereas I usually just sit and watch, today I was able to crawl around with her and move a lot and it felt good, not exhausting.

Second, at around 2pm I knew I really needed to go to the gym and for the first time in a week I really didn't feel like it. I was laying on the couch watching a game with the wife and kiddo asleep and really wanted to just veg out. Instead I got up and went to they gym, and by the time I got there I had woken up and got in a really solid workout.

Thirdly, tonight was a big annual poker tourney for my weekly game with the guys. Knowing there would be a lot of junk food and alcohol, I put a lot of thought into how to handle the evening. I ALWAYS eat at taco bell (favorite cheap food) on my way to poker. Here's my usual order...

2 chili cheese burritos
1 grilled stuffed burrito
1 supreme nachos

1880calories/88fat

Instead I had a protein shake after working out so I would be so starved at dinner time. Then I still went to Taco Bell (just to prove I could lol) and had...

Chicken burrito fresco
fresco taco

490calories/15fat

Fourthly, while at the game (ran until 3am) I avoided all the snack food and alcohol that was there and stuck with diet soda and about 250 calories worth of sunflower seeds (in shell) I snacked on all night. I actually would have been ok with having a beer or two, but I don't like it enough for the calories, plus it hurts my poker game.

Trying to follow on with observations from this weekend, I need to plan ahead for things and not let them "happen" to me which results in poor behaviors.

So here's what I'm thinking. Maybe by writing it down beforehand I'll feel more obligated to stick to it.

Monday (today):
Going to go hit the gym today before heading to the airport. That way I don't have to worry about it tonight when I'm tired and arrive at my hotel. This sounds kind of dumb but I've gotten away from packing good workout shoes as I travel so much that every inch of room is precious. Since this is just a 2.5 day trip I'm going to pack them. I'm going to pack some snack food to take so I always have some food on me. Snack binging is less of a problem for me than getting to lunch/dinner super starved so going overboard at a restaurant.

If the trip was longer I would stop at a grocery store the first night, but I think I can carry enough snacks with me for this length.

Tuesday:
I forsee 3 challenges.

First is breakfast. I really struggle with the all you can eat breakfast buffets with a short order cook (nom nom). 2 options. A) Don't even go, and just eat a banana in my room or a meal bar or something. B) Go, and just order something healthy like an egg white omelete with veggies. B is preferable and a better "lifestyle" choice but is more dangerous. I'll decide this by tonight and stick to my decision in the morning.

Second is lunch. Have to take clients out to lunch on Tuesday which is always tempting. Since this is my first trip and restaurant meal out on the plan I'm going to keep it simple and just order a good salad. Kind of wimpy way out but I think that's best for this time.

Third is working out. I really really really just need to come back to my hotel room, change and go immediately to the gym. If I "stop" and veg out for even 15 minutes like I normally do, it is 100 times harder to get going again. If I just go ahead and knock out the gym I'll be refreshed after showering and ready for dinner/more work.

Wednesday:
Same plan for breakfast. Flying home early afternoon so am faced with another frequent travel misstep --- eating bad at the airport before flying.

This is a notable challenge as I usually don't have time to stop before going to the airport, and small airports do not usually have great healthy food options (often only one small "grill" type place). So I will try two different things. Option 1 would be to pick up a fast food salad at a drive through on the way to the airport and eat at the airport. Option 2 is to eat at the airport and do my best, and adjust calories for dinner.

I'm going to pack workout clothes in my car so I can stop on the way home from the airport and workout. This is key because if I come straight home I won't go back.

Wow, what a day, not what I expected. Everything was pretty normal through the early afternoon.

Mini Success 1
Even though I travelled today, I was good and went to the gym before heading to the airport.

Had to stop by the store to pick up a new temporary belt (my one "fat" belt wore out) and decided to get one 4 inches shorter than my current belt in a moment of boldness (note I have not lost 4 inches, my fat belt had a little growing room). I tried it on and could just get it buckled on the widest buckle so I figure that will be some good motivation to get that new belt up to the 3rd or 4th notch.

Got to the airport and found my flight was cancelled so I had to wait at the airport more than 4 hours for the next flight . I had a ton of work to do, so I had to do it in the uncomfortable airport instead of my comfortable hotel room.

Mini Success 2
Needed a snack and happened to be right across from Freshens Yogurt. Bypassed my normal Peanut Butter Chocolate Thing (>500 cals) and got a regular sized mango lo-cal smoothie (90 cals). And it was actually really really good and hit the spot. Also good to knock out the hunger and stop me from heading to Chilis for a Triple Play with a few beers.

Mini Success 3
Finished my work with about an hour and half until boarding and was deciding how to kill the time. My usual choices are either a book or Netflix. Instead I was like "what the heck, I'll go for a walk". My home airport is HUGE so I basically just walked for the full hour and a half (about 4 miles on my pedometer). I walked between terminals, saw things I've never seen in my hundreds of trips in this airport. I wasn't speed walking or anything since I didn't want to sweat much, but I was moving. By the time my flight left I was wiped (esp after combining that with the gym).

Mini Success 4
Had to eat dinner at the airport and went with a Thai Chicken Wrap from Au Bon Pain. Really didn't want a salad, and it seemed like a decent choice. Turned out to be 530 calories, which was ok for dinner since I skipped chips. Regardless it was a lot better than my usual in that situation (Chili's at the airport Triple Play + 3 beers = 2600 calories )

Flight was fine, except I sat in between two guys who got in a fight when one of them snuck out his blackberry when he wasn't supposed to and the other guy decided to be the police.

I was on a small regional jet (with even smaller seats than a normal plane) and I could have sworn that I fit a bit more comfortably in the seat than I did the last time I flew on one. Could be my imagination.

Anyway I then made it to my destination and the rental car company didn't have a car to fulfill my reservation (I had a conf number and everything). I felt like I was in that Seinfeld episode where the same thing happened to Jerry. Anyway, all 6 rental car companies were sold out, and this is a small town that didn't even have any taxis around that time of night (11pm by now).

But, fortune shone upon me, and after waiting about 10 minutes for a taxi to show up, a shuttle from my hotel happened to come by, I didn't even know they had a shuttle since it's pretty far from the airport. Felt really blessed at that moment after a really long day.

In the end it maybe was a good thing as I would have been pretty tempted to hit a late night drive through after the afternoon/evening I had.

So I was able to end up the day getting in more exercise than expected and stayed in my calorie range. Tomorrow could be tough after today, but one day at a time!